Golden
by Element's Sole Protector
Summary: He had never had a true peaceful, happy day in his life, Harry reflected. - Oh, wait. There had been those golden days.


I own neither Harry, Albus, or their world.

This is the first of four upcoming fics, two of which are done. They are part of what's called _The Precious Metals Series_, and I'm a little proud of them. So this one is the first, although it was technically written second. It's separated into parts, in order, known as '_The Proposal', 'Idea Elaboration', 'Um, Favorite?', 'The Journey', 'Arrival', 'Playtime', 'Secret', 'Discomfort', 'Truth', 'Different', 'Going Home',_ and finally '_And Then...'_. Sort of like _Mako Shade_, for any who have read that.

A baby line from _Half-Blood Prince _is in here. Cookie to who finds it first. And the fic is not titled the way it is because of Snape's disparaging comments, no it is not.

(Oi, and sorry for the incomplete '-' parts. The stupid computer would not work with me. FFNet, you're supposed to be _fixing_ things, not breaking them.)

...And no, I did _not_ use this series as an excuse to create another Harry/Albus bonding fic... I don't think.

* * *

~_**Golden**_~

* * *

Everything began the day Albus Dumbledore suggested that they take a break.

Sixteen year-old Harry Potter had continued to cast spells at him, sure for the most part that his dueling partner was making a clever joke. After all, he was the prophecy-child, the Chosen One, the Boy-Who-Lived. He was tired, sweaty, antisocial and angry at the world, and the world most definitely included the bearded man twinkling across the field from him, he who had told Harry of his own impending doom. So, surely he could _not_ be serious right now.

Professor Dumbledore waved a hand to dissipate the boy's spells (more proof, in Harry's mind, that he stood no real chance against Voldemort), and merely held out one hand. He smiled a smile Harry never entirely understood. The twinkle in his blue eyes brightened.

And the truth crashed into Harry like a speeding train.

_Oh, sweet Merlin._

_He IS serious_.

* * *

"The beach, Harry," Dumbledore repeated gently. "Have you never been to the beach in your life?"

Harry glared meaningfully at his headmaster from across the desk; the man flinched. Both minds reflected on one Harry Potter's years of neglect and misery, and on the horror that was undoubtedly still to come.

"Go on your own," Harry said bluntly. "I'm staying here. I'll train alone, if I have to. Voldemort is out there killing people; I hardly have time for a bloody _vacation_!"

Dumbledore blinked. "And why would I go alone? The 'vacation' is for _you_."

Harry got to his feet. Anger and hurt and disbelief coursed through his blood.

"So after sixteen- excuse me, _fifteen-_-years of neglect and pain and Voldemort, after almost dying and being ridiculed by the bloody Ministry and shunned by people who were supposed to be my friends, after Sirius DIED last summer, you want to _go on vacation_? Are you really as barmy as everyone says you are?"

"Harry," Professor Dumbledore scolded, "language. And really, dear boy-don't you know the answer to the second question already?"

The boy looked at him in horror. Dumbledore only winked, and held out his hand again. The two actions, the most simple and kind the old man had offered him in a long time, soothed Harry's temper. At the same time, he felt more... _vulnerable_ than he had felt since the previous summer.

"Harry," the Headmaster murmured, soothingly. "I want you- _everyone_ wants you- to slow down. Take a break. Take some time off. You will suffer a breakdown if you keep pushing yourself like this.

"...Now, I wish you to go to the beach with me. Will you come?"

It was a long, long silence, but soon enough Harry reached out and took his teacher's hand. He did not smile, but Dumbledore saw the birth of a spark in his green eyes, and it gave the man hope.

"I'll come."

"Excellent," Dumbledore said happily, seeming to regain his bubbly attitude. "Then I will ask that _you_ inform Professors Snape and McGonagall of your upcoming absence."

"_What?_"

* * *

Harry was still fuming when he found Snape in the staff room. _Stopped from training and given tasks like a dog, just what the hell does he think of me? What did I just agree to, anyway? The _beach... _the beach... I know almost nothing about it. Very, very close to nothing._

"Potter," Snape acknowledged coldly- and that was close to all. Although he was still snide with the boy (and occasionally antagonistic to the point of insanity), he seemed to respect the endless training Harry had lately put himself through- perhaps because of his similar dedication to duty. (This according to Dumbledore's theory, which Harry didn't buy one bit.) But then the Potions master did a double-take.

"What are _you_ doing in the staff room?"

"I've been told to inform you that I'll be going away from the castle shortly. With permission."

"How _intriguing_," Snape sneered. "And where might you be going- during the school year, I might add? I wonder... Perhaps you think yourself ready for the Dark Lord?"

Harry gritted his teeth to keep from snarling. "I'm going _away_. Please don't expect me in class, _sir_." (The 'sir' was strained, and tacked on.)

"I am a Professor, Potter, and you will answer my questions- and respectfully."

"If it's good enough for Dumbledore, why isn't it good enough for _you_? The _Headmaster_ knows I'm leaving, for goodness' sake!"

The Slytherin's thick eyebrows rose. His mouth narrowed into a thin line. His voice softened to a low, venomous hiss.

"Is that so?"

"It is," Harry said tightly.

"It is, _sir_. This is quite interesting... I have warned the headmaster against favoring you in any way time and again, yet still he ignores me. Now he is sending his Golden Boy on... a vacation, perhaps? Precious."

Once again Harry was rendered practically mute with rage. The state did not last long.

"I. Am. _Not_. Anyone's. 'Golden Boy'. And I am very damn tired of hearing these rumors!"

"Swearing in the earshot of a teacher, Potter?" Snape smirked. "You know what that means."

He saw red. "I _am not the Headmaster's fav-_-"

"Severus! Do stop antagonizing Potter!"

"I am quite within my power to deflate his ego, Professor McGonagall," Snape pointed out smoothly.

"I _don't have an ego_!"

Minerva McGonagall appeared at last at Harry's side. "Do ease up, Potter- you're heading for an early grave as it is! Severus, I asked you to cease. I won't ask again."

Harry laughed bitterly. To think that, after all of the training and work he'd done this year, all the improvements to his grades and his reputation, _Professor McGonagall_ of all people was telling him to 'ease up'. She, too, was worrying over nothing. _Nothing_.

Professor McGonagall went on. "Really, Severus... Albus has told you that your rancor is childish. What he feels- or doesn't feel- in respect to his students is his own business, as well, and your insinuations are not appreciated."

"A headmaster is hardly allowed to have favorites, Professor. _Certainly_ not from his own former House. Yet Potter- "

"_I will tell you again_," Harry fumed, "_he doesn't _have_ favorites,_ anyone with a _brain_ could see that- "

Professor McGonagall stared incredulously at him even as she silenced him. "Whatever makes you think that? Can you, of all people, not see that the Headmaster is fond of you?" She had to have forgotten her statements from moments before, as she went on quite unashamedly. "He hates to see you work so hard. He has hardly eaten and slept regularly for fear of _your_ imminent collapse."

"Oh, yeah, and Snape here favors Hermione," the boy shot back snidely. "I shudder to think of the implications."

"_Potter!_" Snape's face was venom in human form.

"Really, Potter, that was uncalled for!"

Harry did not care. His blood was racing and he was beyond furious, and he hated himself for having agreed to go to the bloody _beach_ with Dumbledore, the same Dumbledore who hated him enough to leave him where he wasn't wanted and ignore him for a year and then spend only enought time with him _this_ year to mold him into a lethal enemy for Voldemort.

He hated Snape for taunting him about something that still, he realized, wounded him deeply, that he already encountered enough in the hallways- snide whispers about him, Harry, being Dumbledore's favorite, of all things. And he currently despised Professor McGonagall for going along with the idea, with this hurtful _charade_.

_All I wanted was to train in peace. The rest of this is hardly worth it._

"I am leaving Hogwarts for a few days," the boy said coldly. "I want a few things to be straight before I leave.

"I am no one's 'favorite' or 'pet'. Professor Dumbledore and I are only working together because Voldemort is still breathing. And _both_ of you are mental for even thinking anything otherwise."

He turned to leave, only to be stopped by Professor McGonagall's less-than-quiet words to Snape:

"I think you're simply jealous, Severus." (She sounded a little sad. Harry had obviously hurt her feelings by calling her 'mental'- but he was still angry, and that wasn't fading any time soon.)

"_Jealous_? Of _Potter_?"

"Certainly." She called out to Harry: "Potter... I hardly see the reason for your anger. From one favorite of the headmaster's to another... it's nothing to be ashamed of."

Harry let the staff door slam behind him.

* * *

Naturally Harry was still irate hours later, when Dumbledore found him using Cutting Curses on dummies in the Room of Requirement. He had switched from imagining the gossiping throngs of students and Hogwarts staff to high-ranking Death Eaters.

"I've been looking for you for hours."

Harry said nothing except "_Diffindo!_" as he cut down a dummy resembling Voldemort with a fierce swish of his wand hand. His feelings were, though calming and not now boiling, still all mixed up.

Dumbledore's head tilted to the side. "You're upset. What has upset you?"

"Nothing."

"That is not according to your friends."

Harry threw down his wand and turned to face his headmaster. His Killing Curse eyes gleamed.

"If you knew that before, why did you even _bother_ to ask?"

Professor Dumbledore smiled. It was such a strange smile that Harry felt suddenly like crying. The former came forward, so that they were face-to-face, and picked up the boy's wand, handed it back to him.

"The sooner we leave the better, it seems," the man said softly. "Very well- we shall go- however, I would like... I wish you to know that if..." He was struggling to find words, apparently. "...Should you wish it, I am always available to listen to you- whether we are within this castle or elsewhere."

Harry shrugged.

"No, truly," Dumbledore persisted. He went on when Harry did not respond to that either. "What do you think I am here for, as Headmaster, if not for that?"

"To train me so I can defeat Voldemort," Harry shot back. "That's all."

For a moment it was like Dumbledore had been dealt a physical blow- his face went slack in shock and hurt for a moment in time, and he only just managed to make it impassive again.

"...The thestrals are waiting outside, Harry," was all he said, rather quietly.

Harry nodded as the Room of Requirement Vanished the poor, tortured dummies.

They were silent on the way to the Forbidden Forest from the school- Harry under his recently-retrieved Invisibility Cloak, so that the Headmaster appeared to be alone. Neither spoke, either, when the dark, skeletal, nearly-fleshless bodies of the thestrals came into view near the gate, with the carriage attached. Harry got in first, with Dumbledore behind him. As soon as Harry said he was ready, Dumbledore gave a call that sounded like it was in a foreign language, and the phantom horses lifted into the sky.

* * *

Harry did try very hard to stay awake, but two hours in a warm, rapidly-darkening carriage next to a very-warm headmaster who was sitting quite near him did not help in the slightest. Eventually his yawns won out, far beyond his built-up pride; his head dropped onto Dumbledore's shoulder, and he was gone.

The sudden extra weight startled Dumbledore; he had to endeavor to keep from knocking his head on the top of the carriage. Following that, he discovered the source of his alarm- and smiled. It occurred to him, as his blue eyes twinkled down at the boy, that he could not now fall asleep without putting them both in danger-however, Dumbledore found that that didn't matter as he watched Harry's chest rise and fall with his even breathing, a sign of his peaceful sleep.

He was content. _And if I am _too_ content, then, well... at least the thestrals know where to go._

Harry shifted, snuggling unconsciously closer to the headmaster, mumbling something. Dumbledore stroked his messy hair and marveled. The boy probably hadn't been asleep an hour and he looked angelic. Innocent.

Warning bells sounded in the brain below his silver hair- they sounded a lot like the caustic voice of Severus Snape. _Careful, Headmaster. Soon your favoritism for Potter will know no bounds. That is when you will start to make mistakes- ones which will cost not only you, but all of us. You are our leader- reign this in._

Yet how could he take back something as uncontrollable as affection? Why _would_ he? The idea repulsed him. Oddly enough, it also reminded him of Minerva's words to him a few hours previous:

_"His feelings have been hurt by something, Albus."_

He had stared at her in disbelief. _"But I... what could have possibly...? I've been watching him so closely, Minerva."_

_"That doesn't matter. His problem is related to _you_."_

_"But what have I _done_?"_ he had asked, desperately. And when Minerva McGonagall had elaborated on her suspicions, he had felt...

_How_ had he felt? How, really, did he still feel?

It was as though he'd been jabbed with a blunt needle. The pain frightened him, not the blood.

_Harry..._

Dumbledore glanced at the boy again. His heart swelled in his chest, and he forced himself to relax back into the cushions. _I am such a fool, sometimes. An emotional fool._

_An emotional, _sleepy_ fool..._

No. He could not fall asleep. It might have been nighttime, but that made his desire to sleep all the more dangerous. Asleep, without anyone to protect him, Harry would be susceptible to the long, spidery-fingered reach of Voldemort. And in his current emotional state... Dumbledore shuddered to think of what easy prey the boy would make.

Yet even Albus could not fight the power of his brain's own thoughts, coupled with the siren call of sleep. All he wanted was to relax against Harry, close his eyes, and dream of a better world.

_A nap, then. Just a short break. If I'm fully rested, I'll be able to better protect Harry. I'll only... doze off for a moment_...

* * *

Harry, upon waking, was first made aware of his new surroundings when he felt a hand touch his cheek. He stirred, opened his eyes to find Dumbledore holding out an arm to him, guiding him out of the carriage. He moaned in protest at being moved, but the headmaster merely smiled and overrode him: "Don't be silly, Harry- I'm just taking you to the safe house. We've arrived, but I can see that we're both too tired to venture to the beach right now. We are both going to bed- I am simply taking us there- and in the morning our vacation can truly begin. Is that acceptable?"

Harry was not in any condition to answer-the next thing he remembered was being carried through a doorway, and being wished a good night, and then darkness, and nothing at all.

* * *

Upon waking, it was time to go to the beach.

For Harry, he scarcely remembered the time between having his hair tousled at dawn and then standing barefoot in the sand, facing the chaotic waves. Dumbledore gave him a little push and he was gone, as if he'd known how to swim, splash and build sand castles all his life.

What _didn't_ he do that day? He tried to surf (and still had the bruises to prove it); he swam out to a small cave off the coast and found it too difficult to get inside, and upon returning to shore was berated by a frantic Dumbledore about going too far out of even magical range. Then the headmaster bought them ice cream (_ice cream_), and apologized for sounding so harsh. Harry squirmed throughout his words anyway- the man had sounded just like a parent.

Eventually he coaxed Dumbledore into playing with him-neither, afterward, had felt so blind and soggy in their lives.

It took them two hours to find their glasses.

As the golden orb in the sky began its downward descent, Harry decided to make one more sand masterpiece. He made sure to accurately create the Forbidden Forest and the Quidditch Pitch before working slowly, steadily, agonizingly on Hogwarts itself. Once Dumbledore caught on, he was eager to bring the water for the "lake" and to put the light details into each of the towers- particularly Gryffindor's.

When at last it was finished, Harry gave a yell of triumph and promptly collapsed into a startled Dumbledore's arms. The headmaster's blue eyes widened significantly before settling, squinting fondly at his student (there was sand in his eyes).

"Are we going home now?" Harry spoke through a yawn.

"No... Why do you ask?"

"We've been here a whole day."

Dumbledore's silver eyebrows shot up. "And you think that one day awawy from your own relentless training schedule is a sufficient enough vacation?" Harry blushed. "No, it is not. We will stay until _I_ see that you are recovered. All right?"

That was perfectly all right for Harry.

They went 'home' shortly afterward, to the secret house the headmaster often vacationed in, arm in arm since the boy could hardly see even with his glasses, now. As Harry slipped into sleep later, he knew he'd just had one of the best days of his life.

* * *

He could not tell Harry. He had to. He _couldn't_. He must. Albus Dumbledore's emotions were at war. It would have all been so much easier if Harry knew, if he could see how fond Albus was of him, how blatantly obvious it could be at times. It hurt to think that the boy was a bed away from him, sleeping soundly, and thought that people he loved viewed him as a tool.

Albus had promised himself, long before Tom Riddle Junior was an idea, that he would have no favorite student as a professor. Ever. It was dangerous for the one he grew attached to (he had many enemies), and hardly worth the trouble- he'd thought.

He had broken that promise twice.

And the second temptation was sleeping across from him, to be wakened at dawn.

* * *

Nearly every following day was like the first.

Harry splashed, built, destroyed, swam, explored, and went to towns with his headmaster's blessing (if a hesitant one). He eventually convinced Dumbledore to start relaxing _with_ him ("You did come too, after all..."); they mourned together over the loss of their Hogwarts sandcastle, swept away in high tide.

Harry often returned to their safe house early, and collapsed on the couch from sheer physical exhaustion. Dumbledore would return hours later, find the boy, and stay near him for a long, long time.

But after the fourth day there was a change. Reality crept back into Harry's brain- he was supposed to be training, training with the man he was currently "vacationing" with. Why in the world were they _here_, was _he_ here? He needed to be at Hogwarts. Voldemort could be there _right now_, torturing and killing the students and staff, and the two of them here playing in the sand, never the wiser! Hadn't Dumbledore _thought_ of that? Why hadn't _he_? Didn't his headmaster _care_?

A thought struck him. _According to the school, he doesn't care. He only "cares" about me. His "favorite"._

Harry did not speak to Dumbledore at all the entire fifth day.

For his part, the headmaster was understandably hurt. He struggled to get his pupil's attention, regain his favor- yet to no avail. For several hours of that day he moped, and racked his considerable brain for the source of Harry's new distance from him.

At last, at the dawn of the sixth day, after having stayed up all night, Minerva's previous words, along with Severus's, exploded back into his mind's eye and he gasped- a little too loudly.

Harry shot up, green eyes wild but alert.

"What's going on? Is there someone attacking? Is everyone okay?"

_Ah_.

Dumbledore soothed the boy gently. "It is nothing. You think I have not been checking on things since we left? ...Go back to sleep, Harry. You get precious little enough of it."

And indeed, Harry looked a little mollified as he submitted again to sleep.

* * *

Harry went out alone to town that day, having woken up late. When he returned, Dumbledore was waiting quietly for him.

"I made a late lunch."

"Thanks." He started off for it.

"Wait, please," the headmaster implored. "I need your attention."

Harry stopped. Hesitantly, fidgeting slightly (a habit even the Dursleys had never entirely cured him of), he took a seat across from the old man.

Dumbledore took a deep breath; Harry, feeling uncertain as to what this was all about, looked away.

"...You know that you are my favorite student, don't you?"

Harry froze in his chair. Dumbledore spoke his name gently; he did not reply, shaking with fear and doubt.

The headmaster called him again. He sounded a little sad. "I believed that you knew. I felt that, between my own actions and your experiences with Sirius, and with the Weasleys, you would understand... But I see now that I have only confused you. You did not believe such a thing.

"When I was informed... when I learned..." He was struggling with the words. "I realize, now, that you must have heard things at Hogwarts, things other than the truth, from your fellow students, and interpreted them as you would.

"I must ask you... professor to pupil... to ignore what those others might have assumed. I would point out that their unfounded rumors and possibly cruel suppositions are the mother of the discomfort between us now."

Harry said nothing for a long time. He sat and shook, turning over and over in his mind the words his classmates had both said and left unspoken; the professors, who had obviously known of this secret long before him; his friends' knowing glances; the headmaster's kind words, then his coldness, and now all this...

"I do not ask you to forgive me, Harry, or accept me," Dumbledore said quietly, "nor to push my words aside." He looked guilty and shamed- but there was love there too, and it was wholly unashamed. "I wish only that you let me use this time, time away from everything that has separated us, to regain the smile you once readily showed me."

He moved closer and rubbed Harry's chin with his thumb. The boy squirmed, ever ticklish.

"_And_ to teach you to shave, it seems."

Harry was laughing before he could stop himself.

Albus Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled anew. It was, after all, such a merry sound.

"You have crept into my heart, Harry," he said, still more softly. "Let me earn my place in yours."

A lump crept upward into Harry's throat. His eyes stung, suddenly.

"Please."

Harry could only nod as the tears escaped.

* * *

Time at the beach, the feel of it, changed dramatically between the eyes of Harry Potter, Boy Who Lived and Harry Potter, Professor Dumbledore's Favorite Student.

Before it was as if they'd played together, stayed close, out of necessity. Now their sand castles and water games were twice as fun, knowing that the other would be beside them. With eyes opened as they ate ice cream in town, Harry wondered how he'd ever missed Dumbledore's obvious fondness for him.

If anything, the man worked thrice as hard to _make_ it obvious. Harry would often find a hand lingering in his hair, or would be handed some treat the old man had found that he thought his pupil would like. He was soon introduced to every sweet imaginable- and some he couldn't possibly imagine. More and more, he looked up to find blue eyes twinkling down at him, and a warm smile that made him feel wanted and happy.

Once in town, a little girl asked if the two were related. Dumbledore straightened and, winking at her, proudly introduced Harry as his son and heir. Harry had to turn away and compose himself.

Harry woke up ill another day, intensely so. The headmaster's response was immediate: he remained with the boy day and night for four days, wetting his forehead, slipping medicine into him and massaging it down his throat. He kept him confined to bed and saw to the boy's every need, from trips to the toilet to a shy request for water.

"You don't have to do all this," Harry managed weakly, on his second day of sickness beyond compare.

Dumbledore's blue gaze pinned him. "I know, Harry."

And then Harry made the man promise that they would go home as soon as he was well. Neither of them could afford any more time away; it had only been luck that kept Voldemort's gaze away from Hogwarts. Albus looked disappointed at the idea, but gave his favorite pupil his word.

As if he could ever have refused.

* * *

The journey back seemed shorter, and maybe it was.

Harry was well, but weak- he took to laying his head on the shoulder of the one he'd been encouraged to call 'Albus'. As of yet, he had not gotten up the courage.

Albus himself was tanned, a little sad to be leaving the beach, but content all the same. He had accepted his own heart: it loved whomever it chose, and its choosing Harry was the greatest gift he'd ever received; and his heart's noblest act.

Now he tousled Harry's midnight-black hair and murmured, not for the first time, "Rest. I'll wake you when we arrive."

Harry didn't even protest. The vacation, the beach, everything had really mellowed him out.

Once again Albus gave the foreign cry, and the black carriage lifted with a _crunch_ against gravel as the fleshless thestrals took off into the twilight sky. Any Muggles watching, if they were special enough to see anything at all, would only have spotted a black dot fading into an odd-looking negative star.

* * *

The best days he might ever have were gone, Harry reflected.

He was thinking on this back at Hogwarts, lost in thought when he really should have been absorbing Professor McGonagall's Transfiguration lecture.

Never had he been so thought of, considered, cared for, as he had been those days at the beach, in the safe house, in Albus Dumbledore's care. Those days with the headmaster, away from Voldemort, away from everything, were precious.

Were golden.

_One day I've got to go to the beach again._

A shadow appeared over Harry's desk. He felt someone slip something into his hand under the desk; then a prickle of foreboding came, and he looked up.

Professor McGonagall's eyes bored into his.

"Mr. Potter-do bring your mind back to this plane of existence, please."

He blushed. "Sorry, Professor McGonagall."

That was not enough. "Honestly, Potter, your mind has been in the clouds this entire period!" She lowered her voice so that only they two could hear. "I do hope that your 'vacation' is not the cause of your...inattentiveness of late."

"No, Professor," Harry managed, but she was away and teaching again before he could say more.

Ron and Hermione gave him sympathetic looks, which he ignored. He hadn't been entirely truthful anyway. Besides, he was much more concerned about the unaddressed note his Head of House had slipped him under the table.

_I was thinking of another 'break in routine'- soon, perhaps? After all, as I neglected to tell you, not all training occurs in the confines of a building._

_I await your answer on the morrow. We would leave in two weeks, following the end of term._

Harry's face, softened by duty newly mixed with fun, broke into a grin. He had not lost all of his best days after all.

He moved his thumb away from the last line of loopy handwriting.

_You get to pick the place this time._

The letter, triggered by some signal or other, vanished in a blur of golden dust.

Harry's grin widened.

_Oh, Albus Dumbledore, my favorite teacher. You made a big mistake, letting me pick our destination._

_I'm thinking the mountains_...


End file.
